"Sympathectomy is a technique about which we have limited knowledge, applied to disorders about which we have little understanding." Associate Professor Robert Boas, Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australasian College of Anaesthetists and the Royal College of Anaesthetists, The Journal of Pain, Vol 1, No 4 (Winter), 2000: pp 258-260
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Sympathectomy eliminates the fight-or flight response and is used as a surgical treatment of anxiety disorders and phobias
What the myriad of anxiety disorders have in common is a state of increased arousal or fear. Anxiety disorders often are conceptualized as an abnormal or exaggerated version of arousal. Much is known about arousal because of decades of study in animals and humans of the so-called fight-or-flight response, which also is referred to as the acute stress response. The acute stress response is critical to understanding the normal response to stressors and has galvanized research, but its limitations for understanding anxiety have come to the forefront in recent years.